The present invention relates generally to an electronic apparatus, and more particularly to an electronic apparatus that has a back panel that is engageable with and electrically connected to plural units, and serves as an input/output (I/O) interface for each unit. The present invention is suitable, for example, a housing structure of a large electronic apparatus, such as a server and a central computer in a communication base station.
Along with the recent demands for high performance and large capacity, the server increasingly becomes larger and heavier. On the other hand, the server is required to improve the workability in various processes. There are two types in shipping the server product—shipping the entire server and shipping a single unit in the server, such as a CPU unit and an IO unit. In each pattern, the target apparatus is tested before the product is shipped to guarantee the apparatus performance.
In the latter shipping type, the unit is shipped after the individual performance test. For example, in shipping the back panel, the server is assembled once for an operation/performance test of the back panel. If the test result is successful, the server is disassembled and the back panel is taken out and shipped.
A typical server has connection parts to be connected with plural units, such as a CPU unit and an IO unit, on front and back surfaces of the flat back panel, and various types of units are mounted on both surfaces of the back panel. The server's housing opens on the front and back surfaces, and the units are mounted on the connection parts of both surfaces of the back panel from both open sides of the housing. In order to mount plural units on both sides of the back panel in the housing, the back pane is located at the center in the housing.
Prior art is, for example, Japanese Patent Application, Publication No. 4-223284.
However, the conventional server's housing has a problem of bad workability in various processes, in particular, in the test, exchange, and maintenance of the back panel arranged at the center of the housing. In particular, after the test of the back panel ends, or in the exchange and maintenance of the back panel, it is necessary for a personnel to detach all components, such as a unit and a shelf, from both sides of the back panel and to creep into the housing and to pulls the back pane out of the housing. As the server becomes large, the back panel becomes large and heavy. The maintenance and exchange of the back panel become arduous, and the downtime becomes long. Of course, it is arduous to disassemble the server before and after the back-panel test, and the test time becomes long. Thus, many operations necessary for the test and maintenance makes a test time period long and increases the product manufacturing cost.